JIMMY GETS NEWS
There was a letter from the "Great Horatio" on Jimmy's plate the
following morning. Jimmy looked at the handwriting and the foreign
stamp and grimaced.
The Great Horatio seldom wrote unless something were the matter. He
was a good many years older than Jimmy, and Jimmy held him in distinct
awe.
He finished his breakfast before he even thought of breaking the seal,
then he took up the letter and carried it over with him to the fire.
Jimmy Challoner was breakfasting in his dressing-gown. It was very
seldom that he managed to get entirely dressed by the time breakfast
was ready. He sat down now in a big chair and stuck his slippered feet
out to the warmth.
He turned his brother's letter over and over distastefully. What the
deuce did the old chap want now? he wondered. He gave a sigh of
resignation, and broke open the flap.
He and the Great Horatio had not met for two years.
Horatio Ferdinand Challoner, to give him his full name, was a man whose
health, or, rather, ill-health, was his hobby.
All his life he had firmly believed himself to be in a dying state; all
his life he had lived more or less at Spas, or on the Riviera, or at
health resorts of some kind or another.
He was a nervous, irritable man, as unlike Jimmy as it is possible for
two brothers to be.
For the past two years he had been living in Australia. He had
undertaken the voyage at the suggestion of some new doctor whose advice
he had sought, and he had been so ill during the six weeks' voyage
that, so far, he had never been able to summon sufficient pluck to
start home again.
Jimmy had roared with laughter when he heard; he could so well imagine
his brother's disgust and fear. As a matter of fact, it suited Jimmy
very well that the head of the family should be so far removed from
him. He hated supervision; he liked to feel that he had got a free
hand; that he need not go in fear of running up against Horatio
Ferdinand at every street corner.
He read his brother's closely written pages now with a long-suffering
air. Jimmy hated writing letters, and he hated receiving them; most
things bored him in these days; he had been drifting for so long, and
under Cynthia Farrow's tuition he would very likely have finally
drifted altogether into a slack, nothing-to-do man about town, very
little good to himself or anyone else.
Horatio Ferdinand wrote:--
DEAR JAMES,-- (He hated abbreviations; he would never allow people to
call him "Horace"; his writing was cramped and formal like himself.) I
have heard a rather disquieting rumour about you from a mutual friend,
and shall be glad if you will kindly write to me upon receipt of this
letter and inform me if there is any truth in the allegation that you
are constantly seen in the company of a certain actress. I hardly
think this can be so, as you well know my dislike of the stage and
anything appertaining thereto. My health is greatly improved by my
visit here, and all being well I shall probably risk making the return
voyage after Christmas. Upon second consideration, I shall be glad if
you will cable your reply to me, as the mail takes six weeks, as you
know.--Your affectionate brother.
Jimmy crushed the letter in his hand.
"Damned old idiot!" he said under his breath. He got up, and began
striding about the room angrily. The tassels of his dressing-gown
swung wildly at each agitated step; the big carpet slippers he wore
flapped ungracefully.
"Confounded old fathead."
Jimmy was flushed, and his eyes sparkled. He ran his fingers through
his hair, making it stand on end. After a few strides he felt better.
He went back to the armchair and took up his brother's letter once more.
After a moment he laughed, rather a sore laugh, as if something in the
stilted wording of the letter hurt him.
What would he not have given now to be able to cable back:
"Quite right; she is my wife."
But as it was----
"Let him think what he likes. I don't care a hang," was the thought in
Jimmy Challoner's mind.
He sat there with his chin drooping on his breast, lost in unhappy
thought.
It was not yet two days since Cynthia had sent him away; it seemed an
eternity.
Did she miss him at all? did she ever wish she could see him? ever wish
for one hour out of the happy past? Somehow he did not think so. Much
as he had loved her, Jimmy Challoner had always known hers to be the
sort of nature that lived solely for the present; besides, if she
wanted him, she had only got to send--to telephone. He looked across
at the receiver standing idle on his desk.
So many times she had rung him up; so many times he had heard her
pretty voice across the wire:
"Is that you, Jimmy boy?"
He would never hear it again. She did not want him any more. He
was--ugly word--jilted!
Jimmy writhed in his chair. That any woman should dare to so treat
him! The hot blood surged into his face.
It was a good sign--this sudden anger--had he but known it. When a man
can be angry with a woman he has once loved he is already beginning to
love her less; already beginning to see her as less perfect.
Some one tapped at his door; his man entered.
Costin was another bone of contention between Jimmy and the Great
Horatio.
"I never had a valet when I was your age," so his brother declared.
"What in the wide world you need a valet for is past my comprehension."
Jimmy had felt strongly inclined to answer that most things were past
his comprehension, but thought better of it; he could not, at any rate,
imagine his life without Costin. He knew in his heart that he had no
least intention of sacking Costin, and Costin stayed.
"If you please, sir," he began now, coming forward, "Mr. Sangster would
like to see you."
"Show him up," said Jimmy. He rose to his feet and stood gnawing his
lower lip agitatedly.
How much did Sangster know, he wondered, about Cynthia? He would have
liked to refuse to see him, but--well, they would have to meet sooner
or later, and, after all, Sangster had been a good friend to him in
more ways than one.
Jimmy said: "Hallo, old chap!" with rather forced affability when
Sangster entered. The two men shook hands.
Sangster glanced at the breakfast-table.
"I'm rather an early visitor, eh?"
"No. Oh, no. Sit down. Have a cigarette?"
"No, thanks."
There was little silence. Jimmy eyed his friend with a sort of
suspicion. Sangster had heard something. Sangster probably knew all
there was to know. He shuffled his feet nervously.
Sangster was the sort of man at whom a woman like Cynthia Farrow would
never have given a second glance, if, indeed, she thought him worthy of
a first. He was short and squarely built; his hair was undeniably red
and ragged; his features were blunt, but he had a nice smile, and his
small, nondescript eyes were kind.
He sat down in the chair Jimmy had vacated and looked up at him
quizzically.
"Well," he said bluntly, "is it true?"
Jimmy flushed.
"True! what the----"
The other man stopped him with a gesture.
"Don't be an ass, Jimmy; I haven't known you all these years for
nothing. . . . Is it true that Cynthia's chucked you?"
"Yes." Jimmy's voice was hard. He stared up at the ceiling under
scowling brows.
Sangster said "Humph!" with a sort of growl. He scratched his chin
reflectively.
"Well, I can't say I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "It's the best
thing that's ever happened to you, my son."
Jimmy's eyes travelled down from the ceiling slowly; perhaps it was
coincidence that they rested on the place on the mantelshelf where
Cynthia's portrait used to stand.
"Think so?" he said gruffly. "You never liked her."
"I did--but not as your wife. . . . She's much more suited to Henson
Mortlake--I always thought so. He'll keep her in order; you never
could have done."
Jimmy had been standing with his elbow on the mantelpiece; he swung
round sharply.
"Mortlake; what's he got to do with it?" he asked fiercely. "What the
deuce do you mean by dragging him in? It was nothing to do with
Mortlake that she--she----"
Sangster was looking at him curiously.
"Oh! I understood--what was the reason, then?" he asked.
Jimmy turned away. He found the other man's eyes somehow disconcerting.
"She's married already," he said in a stifled voice. "I--I always knew
she had been married, of course. She made no secret of it. He--the
brute--left her years ago; but last week--well, he turned up
again. . . . She--we--we had always believed he was dead."
There was a little silence. Sangster was no longer looking at Jimmy;
he was staring into the fire. Presently he began to whistle softly.
Jimmy rounded on him.
"Oh, shut up!" he said irritably.
Sangster stopped at once. After a moment:
"And the--er--husband!" he submitted dryly. "You've--you've seen him,
of course."
"No, I haven't. If I did--if I did, I'd break every bone in his
infernal carcase," said Jimmy Challoner, between his teeth.
He stared down at his friend with defiant, eyes as he spoke.
Sangster said "Humph!" again. Then: "Well, there's as good fish in the
sea as any that were caught," he said cheerily. "Look at it
philosophically, old son."
Jimmy kicked a footstool out of his way. He walked over to the window,
and stood for a moment with his back turned. Presently:
"If anyone asks you, you might as well tell them the truth," he said
jerkily. "I--don't let them think that brute Mortlake----"
He broke off.
"I'll tell 'em the truth," said Sangster.
He leaned over the fire, poking it vigorously.
"What are you doing to-night, Jimmy?" he asked, "I'm at a loose end----"
Jimmy turned.
"I'm taking some people to the theatre--old friends! Met them quite by
chance the other night. Haven't you heard me speak of them--the
Wyatts?"
"By Jove, yes!" Sangster dropped the poker unceremoniously. "People
from Upton House. You used to be full of them when I first knew you,
and that's how many years ago, Jimmy?"
"The Lord only knows!" said Jimmy dispiritedly. "Well, I've got a box
for a show to-night, and asked them to come. Christine's dead nuts on
theatres. Remember Christine?"
"I remember the name. Old sweetheart of yours, wasn't she?"
"When we were kids."
"Oh, like that, is it? Well, ask me to come along too."
"My dear fellow--come by all means."
Jimmy was rather pleased at the suggestion. "You'll like Mrs.
Wyatt--she's one of the best."
"And--Christine?"
"Oh she's all right; but she's only a child still," said Jimmy
Challoner with all the lordly superiority of half a dozen years.